Nothing but a rock!
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2005
1
23
31
Trip End
Dec 21, 2005
Alice Springs, Ayers Rock,
Australia
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Leaving Sydney, flying to Alice Springs and driving to Ayers Rock!!
Alarm was sounding at 3.30 am, it isn't easy having to get up with an alarm clock now!
We were pretty much ready to leave straight away so we woke Jon up to say goodbye and just as we walked out of the apartment door, there was our taxi waiting for us, good timing!
It was still really dark outside and it was a lovely drive going over the bridge, seeing the city all lit up!
The taxi ride was only about 20 minutes and it was quiet when we arrived at the terminal to check in. It wasn't long before a bus load of french youngsters on some kind of tour in Melbourne were getting ready to board our plane with us
Ayers Rock at Sunset
!I called to speak to mum which was nice, we checked in our bags and the flight to Melbourne was only about an hour so seemed to be over really quickly. As we landed in Melbourne we could see the city, all the huge buildings and it was a nice day here! Our connecting flight to Alice Springs was only a short while after so we boarded the connecting flight to the Northern Territory, Alice Springs. We were served another continental breakfast yummy! The flight was so clear, not a cloud in the sky and out of the window it looked like brown patchwork. This time we landed at Alice Springs, the smallest airport we've ever seen! We walked off the plane into the tiny terminal building. Our bags were off the carasoul in a jiffy so we collected the keys from Europcar our bargain car hire from lastminute.com and put our bags in our brand new Hyundai Accent cool and air conditioned..nice!
We drove to Alice Springs petrol station to pick up some water and nibbles...it's very HOT! Then we took what I can recall the LONGEST most BORING journey ever!!! It was just one LONG road, with nothing but red sand on each side and burnt out plants! We went out of range with the radio about 60kms down the road with the journey being 450 km we had to keep talking to stay awake! We would pass the odd dead carcus of a bull or cow or even kangaroo at the side of the road! The journey there took just over 4 hours
Dan at Ayers Rock
! It was a good job we had air conditioning!We arrived at Ayers Rock Resort where we were staying at the Outback Pioneer Lodge, we were sharing a 4 bedroomed dormitory with 2 chinese girls. We got our key and dropped our rucksacks in the room before grabbing some well needed lunch. We drove to Kata Tjuta National Park to see the rock itself, after all that's what we came for!
The visitor centre here had the most amazing gifts, things the aboriginies (not sure if you spell it like that but I'm in a rush here!) had made. It had a great place where you could learn about the rock and what happened thousands of years ago.
At 6 pm we parked up the car to watch the sunset at the rock, how amazing! another definite moment! A moment of driving for hours to get here slap bang in the middle of nowhere, everyone was out taking pictures waiting for the moment when the sun just went down and the rock went dark! Everyone had tripods out trying to capture the moment.
As we left Ulura and drove back to the resort, we could see Kata Tjuta, the Olgas and the sun setting with a beautiful purple sky, just beautiful!
Monday 28th November 2005
Alice Springs
Well we didn't make it up in time for the sunrise
Our Hire Car
! We were absolutely pooped from the travelling yesterday. We were even in bed and asleep for about 9.30 pm. The girls we were sharing the room with were in and out all night rustling carrier bags and their alarm was going off at 3 pm so it took them about an hour and a half to get ready!At least we got some sleep though.
We got up about 8am and feeling slightly more refreshed we checked straight out and another red hot day, loads of lovely buzzing flies around our faces!
We nipped to the supermarket to pick up some fruit and bars for breakfast and then took a short drive back to Ulura, Kata Tjuta National Park and dorve to the see th Olgas.
They are huge rock formations like Ayers Rock but lumpier!!! As I was driving I could see Ayers Rock in the rear view mirror and just to the right were the Olgas it was a lovely morning. We parked the car up and took a walk to get some good pictures which was nice...apart from the flies!
As we drove back past Ayers Rock it still looked amazing, it's wierd because you can just keep looking at it, it's great!
We topped up with fuel to start our journey back, me driving and for the next 450km we just listened to the ipod, I'm glad we bought the speakers with us!!! I also ran over a lizard just perching itself in the middle of the road, ooops!
We arrived back at the airport just in time to drop the car off and catch the free shuttle bus to Toddy's Backpackers where we got some accommodation for the night. It was only 15 minutes from the airport. Alice Springs is a bit of a dump really, not much here so we stayed at the backpackers for an $8 eat as much as you can BBQ and drink before hitting the sack with our books! Another flight tomorrow to Perth!
